Another Fan Poem by Stéphane Mallarmé

Dear dreamer, help me to take off
Into my pathless, pure delight,
By always holding in your glove
My wing, a thin pretence of flight.

A freshness as of twilight brushes
Against you as you flutter me,
And each imprisoned wing-beat pushes
Back the horizon tenderly.

It's dizzying: shivers run through space
Like an enormous kiss, which, mad
At being born for no one's face,
Can not discharge, nor yet subside.

Don't you feel heaven is shy? It slips,
Blushing, a piece of laughter stifled,
Down by the corner of your lips
To hide in my concerted fold.

This sceptre rules the banks of rose
And pools of evening's golden mire,
This flying whiteness that you close
And land beside a bracelet's fire.


Another translation:


Fan

Oh dreaming lady, let me plunge
Into pure and pathless delight,
Invent a gentle lie,
To keep my wing in your hand.
A twilight coolness
Comes over you with each pulsation
Of the fan whose captive blow delicately,
Displaces the horizon.
Dizziness! how space shivers
Like an enormous kiss
That, madly wanting to be born,
Cannot burst forth nor find its peace.
Do you feel the sullen paradise
Like laughter wearing shrouds
Flowing up from the corner of your mouth
At the back of the unanimous furrow!
The scepter of pink embankments
Inert on golden evenings, this is it
This closed white flight that you interpose
Against the fire of a bangle